Integrated Throughput/Material Flow Modeling

Objectives

Designing a system to achieve increased model-mix flexibility without significantly increasing capital expenditures requires an integrated approach to the design and development of both the process and the material handling system. Allowing equipment designers to "assume material is always available" is dangerous in today’s highly competitive manufacturing environment. By developing a modeling tool that integrates the work of facilities engineering with process engineering in an overall integrated model Empirical Solutions Corporation provides manufacturing organizations with a method for quantifying the job per hour impact of material flow. Our success in this area has earned us the preferred supplier status for the Ford Motor Company Powertrain Engineering Group. Typical objectives of an Integrated Throughput/Material Flow modeling project include:

• To optimize material handling resource levels
• To minimize work in process inventory levels
• To minimize non-value added travel of material handling resources
• To test alternative order-driven scheduling strategies and quantify their impact on system performance
• To identify optimal batch sizes to minimize operating costs

Performance Measures

Effective decision-making requires the evaluation of valid information and a clear understanding of the consequences of a particular action. Our integrated throughput/material flow modeling approach insures that we provide quantitative measures to support the decision-making process. Typical measures from a material flow study include:

• System throughput and the job per hour  impact of material shortages
• Part specific stockout information including the frequency and average duration
• Material handling resource utilizations
• Lineside inventory and reorder points
• Material handling operator assignments
• Market area inventory statistics
• Dock utilization statistics
• The number of trips per hour of material handling vehicles in each aisle of the plant
• Identification of pedestrian safety risk areas

Benefits

Considering material handling as an integral part of a manufacturing system and providing a quantitative tool for the evaluation of alternative operating strategies provides numerous benefits, including:

• Reduced indirect labor costs
• Reduced inventory carrying costs
• Reduced lead time and dock to dock processing time
• Increased build to schedule performance
• Improved management of process constraints